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Chehalem Business Connection Page 5 September 2013
Animals are resilient creatures.
They can take a beating, lick
their wounds and move on.
They can adapt. Throughout the ages,
they’ve survived droughts, floods, earth-
quakes, volcanic eruptions, meteor
strikes and all manner of other catastro-
phes. And they’re still here.
It’s appropriate then, that Newberg is
seeing a similar resiliency showcased,
albeit on a smaller scale, at a local store
devoted to animals: the Critter Cabana.
The popular pet store, which opened in
downtown Newberg a decade ago and
has since launched a satellite location in
Wilsonville, was severely damaged by a
two-alarm fire that broke out in its base-
ment Dec. 13.
However, the Cabana’s co-owners —
brothers Matt and Scott Johnson and
their wives, Brittani and Amanda, re-
spectively — are rebuilding the store at
its original flagship location at 516 E.
First St. Some of the external signs of the
blaze remain — including the brown
paper taped over the store’s glass display
cases — but inside is a completely dif-
ferent story.
Standing inside the historic building,
the interior is clean and bright, and the
air carries not a trace of smoke. Matt
Johnson just chuckles.
“It’s coming together, and it’s been re-
ally cool to see that happen,” he said. He
points at the new plywood floors, which
will soon be overlaid with maple hard-
wood — same as the
old store. “When the
floors came in, it re-
ally lightened things
up in here. Before,
when you would
come in here, it was
just pitch black. You couldn’t see any-
thing, even in the day time.”
Overall, Johnson said the new Cabana
will look a lot like the old Cabana. It
will, however, be bigger. The new store
will include an approximately 1,600-
square-foot space upstairs as well as the
3,000 square feet below. The upstairs
was previously occupied by a yoga stu-
dio operated by the building’s owner,
Jane Carlsen, but Johnson said she has
elected to relocate the studio following
the fire.
“We’ll have most of the animals up
there. It will be kind of the ‘fun zone,’”
Johnson said with a grin.
The fire was, by all accounts, devas-
tating for the Johnsons. No one was in-
jured, but a number of fish, birds,
domestic and exotic animals died in the
early morning blaze, despite the best ef-
forts of firefighters and emergency per-
sonnel. In addition, virtually all of the
store’s shelving, tanks, computers, in-
ventory and other
equipment had to be
trashed — a loss of
a p p r o x i m a t e l y
$250,000, Johnson
said.
The fire was fol-
lowed by months of uncertainty as the
storeowners dealt with their insurance
provider and worked on their future
plans. They opened a temporary location
at 105 N. Main St., mostly selling pet
food, which allowed them to maintain
part of their customers and staff, but the
revenue earned there will ultimately be
subtracted from the award by their insur-
ers, Johnson said.
But now that the store is getting back
on its feet again, it’s becoming easier to
forget the difficulties of the recent past,
he said.
“For a long time, thinking about (the
fire) was something we just avoided. It
gave us a sick feeling,” he said. “But the
more we started working on the new
store, the easier that has become.”
Support from the community has also
helped them on their way, he added. Not
only have a number of fundraisers for
the Critter Cabana been held over the
past year, but Johnson said a list on the
store’s website where volunteers can
sign up to assist in the recovery contin-
ues to grow to this day.
“People are still signing up to help
out, which is good, because we’re going
to be going through that really soon,” he
said. “We’ll be looking for a lot of help
to get things set up again.”
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Critter Cabana restoration ‘coming together’
Repairs on fire-damaged pet store on First Street could be completed by October, owners and contractors say
Please read more about Critter Cabana
on page six
Contractors are busy at work returning Critter Cabana to condition and expanding the popular First Street store.
“It’s coming together, and it’s been really
cool to see that happen. When the floors
came in, it really lightened things up in
here. Before, when you would come in
here, it was just pitch black. You couldn’t
see anything, even in the day time.”